(from TaipanFinancialNews.com) Tech Stocks: New Cell Technology Can Extend Your Cell Battery Life 200 Times
By Ann Sosnowski, American Capitalist Wednesday Aug 01, 2007 Years ago, I decided to cancel my home telephone service. I couldn't remember the last time I had picked up my cordless phone to make a call. After all, I'd had a cellphone for five or more years, and the home phone in my apartment was becoming increasingly good for only one thing: recording messages from telemarketers. You may be surprised to know that 19% of Americans are like me: They rely solely on their mobile phones for communicative tasks, having gotten rid of their home phone service years ago. Of course, there are problems with relying solely on your cellphone for personal and business matters. No matter what cellphone service you're loyal to, there's always bound to be some dead spots in your calls. Oddly enough, a recent survey unveiled that up to 41% of wireless minutes are spent while customers are at home. So if you make half of your phone calls from home on a cellphone, but encounter poor cellular coverage in your home, what good is you cellphone if you can't use it as efficiently as a landline? The new generation of cellphone technology is geared toward eliminating dead spots in cellphone serviceĀ and possibly eliminating the use of cellphone towers completely. (This technology is so new, it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page!) The new cell technology is named femtocells (femto meaning one-quadrillionth of a unit). Essentially, femtocell technology works as an in-home, or in-area, wireless access point, which resembles the regular modem or router that you already have for your computer. The difference between this technology and Wi-Fi or VOIP phone service is that femtocell uses high-speed Internet connections instead of a wireless network to connect the call from the handset to the "switching station," effectively directing the call signal to its final destination. (This reminds me a lot of Zigbee home automation, which I was researching a few years ago before it began gaining elaborate attention. Zigbee technology consisted of small nodes with sensors that communicated to each other wirelessly and on extremely low power. Zigbee products were -- and still are -- being prepped for conducting energy in low bursts throughout buildings. Companies interested on creating a "Zigbee standard" came together to form a consortium for R&D and to promote better marketing of the end product.) Femtocell technology is taking the same road: Heavy hitters like Motorola (MOT:NYSE) and Google Inc. (GOOG:NASDAQ) are investing monies into perfecting the technology. GOOG was part of a group that placed $20 million into Femtocell start-up company Ubiquisys. Motorola has stated that femtocells are "getting an equal amount of energy in terms of importance" along with Wi-Fi and WiMAX development. Airvana (AIRV:NASDAQ), a recent IPO, is part of the Femto Forum that is promoting standards for the technology, along with Nokia Siemens Networks and Netgear (NTGR:NASDAQ), a network solutions company that makes Wi-Fi routers. Femtocells' major advantage, besides providing clear reception, is that they conserve the battery life of a cellphone, keeping it alive for up to 200 times longer. Femtocells can also boost a wireless network's capacity by up to 1,500 times, reducing the infrastructure and service costs taken on by cellular service providers by $70 billion come 2012, according to research firm ABI Research. Femtocell technology has some serious potential. In fact, a six-month trial of the technology will start next year in parts of the London Underground subway system, to enable passengers to use their cellphones and other wireless technology while below ground. And according to Chris Gilbert, CEO of Ubiquisys, the entire city of London could run on femtocell technology for as little as $40 million; half being spent on the femtocell boxes and half on network upgrades. Of course, the first step to this process is making sure the industry has a standard protocol for the femtocell technology, which will occur, hopefully, by the end of next year. Regardless, you heard of it here first, so be on the lookout for any opportunities. I know I will.
